Sal, Grandpa Dominick, and Sal’s mother, Bella
Grandpa Dominick’s cousin Freddy selling fish in Italy
9.
We ate a lotta seafood in our house, and not just because of Lent. Actually, the only reason we ever knew it was Friday during Lent was because we were always ridiculously busy at the restaurant. We’re not talkin’ about a little bit more business—we’re talkin’ if you sold $2,000 worth of pizza on a normal night, you were at least doubling that on Fridays. It was all Italians and Irish Catholics in the neighborhood, so we’d be madhouse crazy. And all the orders would be for eggplant pies, seafood pies—no meat. I guess we shoulda known it was Lent because of church, but it was what it was.
Lent or not, when we were eatin’ seafood it was because the love for it ran in our family. Our great-grandpa Gregory Auditorre, who owned a pastry shop, he was always cookin’ fish in the store. Seriously—you’d walk in expecting to smell cookies and all you could smell was garlic and oil. But the poor guy, his wife didn’t cook. She kept the house spotless, but she couldn’t make a thing. So our great-grandfather, he did all the cookin’. And since he had to be downstairs runnin’ the pastry business, he’d cook for the two of them then bring it upstairs for lunch and dinner. He’d always be makin’ those heavy fishes like bluefish with garlic and parsley. It would smell delicious, but that’s all you could smell when you walked in. Sal’s mom, Bella, remembers sayin’ something to him about it once. All he said was, “What do you want me to do? I gotta eat!”
But our grandpa Dominick was the big fish guy in the family. He came to America when he was sixteen, but the time he did spend in Sicily, he spent in a fishing village. So he was always around the water and fishing culture. He loved fishin’—that was his thing. In the summertime we’d go down to the marina and hang out on his boat, then watch him make Crab Sauce (here) on the piers. And whenever we’d go over to his house, he was always makin’ some kinda seafood—whiting, or “Whities,” as he called ’em, with Lemon and Onion (here) or Mussels Marinara with Linguine (here) or a big pot of Seafood Fra Diavolo Sauce (here).
Most of these recipes are perfect for when the weather gets warm. For us, that always meant havin’ dinner in the backyard. In Staten Island, everybody had the same yard. It was exactly like what you saw in Easy Money—the cookie-cutter thirty-foot by fifty-foot lot, a chain-link fence with green slats runnin’ through it, an aboveground pool, a little bit of grass, a little deck, and a grill. In the summertime, everybody would be out there, so you could see what your neighbors had goin’ on. You knew you were cookin’ something good when other people started showin’ up at your door with a plate.
Grandpa Dominick cooking up blue crabs
Fran and Sal out fishin’
Sal’s mom, Bella, in Sicily
HOLY MACKEREL
SERVES 2
Our grandfather loved makin’ this dish and would actually call it Holy Mackerel too. He’d buy whole mackerels, flour ’em, and fry ’em with the skin on. The flour acted like a kind of roux and would thicken up the sauce a bit, which was basically just oil and garlic, white wine, and a splash of red sauce.
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons salt, plus more as needed
1 teaspoon black pepper, plus more as needed
2 medium mackerels, gutted, cleaned, and butterflied
1 cup olive oil
1 tablespoon salted butter
1 large Spanish onion, halved and cut into 1-inch slices
½ cup white wine
¾ cup (or 1 [6-ounce] ladle) Marinara Sauce (here)
½ cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1 lemon, cut into wedges, for serving
In a large bowl, combine the flour, salt, and pepper. Toss the mackerel in the flour and dredge inside and out. Shake off any excess flour and lay the mackerel on a plate.
In a frying pan, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat until it shimmers. Line a plate with paper towels. Fry the mackerel in the hot oil until golden brown, then transfer to the paper towel–lined plate and set aside.
Drain half the oil out of the pan, then add the butter, onion, and salt and pepper to taste and cook until the onions are soft but not caramelized. When just about there, pour in the wine and scrape up all the good stuff from the bottom of the pan. Let the wine cook out until the pan is almost dry but not quite, then add the red sauce and toss in the parsley. Smother the mackerel with the onions and serve with wedges of lemon.
SANDSHARK
WITH RED WINE, BUDWEISER, ONIONS, AND POTATOES
SERVES 2
Because our grandfather grew up in Sicily, he was always eatin’ seafood—whiting, baccalà, sardines, crabs, mussels, clams, lobsters. After he passed, we would still go fishing all the time. One day we weren’t catching anything; we just kept getting the same friggin’ sandshark. Nobody ever kept a sandshark—they’d get mad at it and throw it back in. They called it “dog fish.” But we said “Screw it, we’ll keep it and eat it.” So we took it back to Fran’s mother’s house to cook it. We were with our friend Eddy, who is an expert fisherman, and he skinned this thing, no problem. And it’s not that easy. But this kid was such a pro that he just peeled off the skin. It was late, so instead of making a soup and stinkin’ up Fran’s mother’s house, we decided to throw it on the BBQ. We took a big roasting pan, cut up some potatoes and onions, threw in some butter, dried parsley, salt, and pepper, and then laid the fish down. Normally we’d add some white wine ’cause we were makin’ fish, but all we had was this bottle of Merlot from some vineyard in Jersey and a can of Budweiser.
When we tell you that this was the most delicious thing we ever cooked by accident, we’re not jokin’. Now every time we go fishing we keep the sandsharks and cook ’em like this and then we all fight over the burnt bits soaked with all that delicious grease from the fish. You could do this with bluefish too. Just make sure you scrape up all the good stuff from the bottom of the pan. You’ll get more of it if you cook this over direct heat on a grill, but you can make it in the oven too.
1 large sandshark or bluefish, cleaned and skinned
3 large Spanish onions, sliced
8 russet potatoes, cut into cubes
8 tablespoons (1 stick) salted butter
3 tablespoons lard
2 cups red wine, like Merlot
3 tablespoons dried parsley
2 teaspoons black pepper
2 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1 bay leaf
2 teaspoons fresh thyme
1 (12-ounce) can Budweiser
In a large roasting pan, combine all of the ingredients except for the beer. Cover with foil and place on the grill and close the lid, or place the pan in the oven. Cook for 1 ½ hours, then remove the foil. Continue cooking, checking every now and then until most of the liquid has evaporated. Add the can of beer. Keep cooking until the beer has evaporated.
With a metal spatula, serve up the fish along with the scrapings from the bottom of the pan.
GRANDPA DOMINICK’S ICED TEA
MAKES 4 CUPS
Our grandfather used to love makin’ iced tea. He thought he had a secret recipe, which basically meant just adding triple the amount of 4C iced tea mix than called for on the box, plus about a cup of table sugar. He’d just keep throwin’ it in. It was the sweetest tea you ever tasted in your entire life, so sweet it could rot your teeth and thick enough that you could put a knife in it and it would stand up straight. You could use it for pancake batter. He’d serve it with crushed ice and eat it with a spoon. Then whatever he didn’t drink right away, he’d go the extra mile and store it in glass Tropicana bottles so it got even colder in the fridge.
1 package iced tea mix
1 cup sugar
Juice of 2 lemons
Make the iced tea according to the package instructions, doubling the amount of mix called for. Stir in the sugar and lemon juice and serve over crushed ice.
CRAB SAUCE
SERVES 4
In the summertime, our parents would take us down to the dock two, three days a week. My grandfather had a big boat at the marina where he’d be almost every day—like the mayor of the place. Oh, man, just thinking about that marina air makes us hungry for crab sauce. Our grandfather, he didn’t like taking the boat out a lot; he just liked to hang out on the docks. He had a whole patio setup and he kept a crab trap right under that boat with some chicken in it as bait. Every couple of hours, he’d check the trap and there’d be a crab or two. He’d throw ’em into this big crab pot with some onions, olive oil, salt, and pepper. It wasn’t like there was a secret recipe—it was tomato sauce with crabs in it, you know? But that sauce reminded us—and still does—of a summer day. Every time we cook some up we can hear the bell on the back of the boat clangin’ and smell the salt of the water.
½ cup olive oil
2 medium onions, sliced
1 tablespoon salt, plus more for the pasta water
1 teaspoon black pepper
6 cleaned blue crab claws
2 (28-ounce) cans peeled Italian tomatoes, preferably Tuttorosso or Redpack, crushed by hand
1 pound spaghetti
4 tablespoons (½ stick) salted butter
Heat the olive oil in a large pot over medium heat until shimmering. Toss in the onions, salt, and pepper along with the crabs. Sauté until the onions are caramelized. Add the tomatoes, bring the mixture to a boil, then let simmer for 1 hour. Remove the crabs from the sauce and set aside.
Meanwhile, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook the spaghetti according to the package directions until al dente, then drain and return to the pot. Add the butter, tossing until it has melted, then add the crab sauce.
Serve the crabs alongside the spaghetti so you can eat ’em with your hands.
MUSSELS AND HEINEKEN
SERVES 6 TO 8
There was nothin’ we liked more than barbecuing on a sunny summer day, especially when we got older and moved outta our parents’ houses. On Sundays we’d head down to Joe’s Lobster House—where we bought our fish if we didn’t take it from the restaurant—and go to Fran’s mom’s house out on the Tottenville Marina. We’d get there early, invite all our friends, and cook up a storm. We’d make so many courses it’d be like an all-day luau or clambake or somethin’. We’re just like our grandfather in that way, always wantin’ to feed everybody. He loved his family and wanted to make ’em food, but he also loved to do it because he loved cookin’. And he especially loved hearin’ “The food’s delicious” or “Wow, this was the best I ever ate.”
So we’d invite all our friends out to Fran’s mom’s new house that she bought in ’98. It over-looked the Raritan Bay and was the second house from the beach, so you could walk outta her door and be at the water in two seconds. Fran used to play a game where he’d try to get a boat as close to the house as he could. Joy would be out there screamin’, “You’re gonna hit a f****** rock!”
Usually when we made mussels at the restaurant, we’d use wine. But when there was a bunch of twenty-somethings hangin’ out, we weren’t drinkin’ wine, we were drinkin’ Heineken, so we used that instead. With all that butter and parsley and garlic, you didn’t miss the wine. You could also easily substitute crab legs for an equally delicious dish.
2 tablespoons olive oil
6 garlic cloves, chopped
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
2 tablespoons salted butter
½ bunch fresh flat-leaf parsley, leaves and stems chopped
1 teaspoon salt
3 pounds mussels, scrubbed and debearded
2 bottles warm Heineken
10 fresh basil leaves, torn
1 teaspoon dried oregano
½ lemon, for serving
In a large saucepot, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the garlic and red pepper flakes and cook until the garlic browns. Add the butter, parsley, salt, and mussels. When the butter has completely melted, add the Heineken and let it simmer for 3 to 5 minutes, or until the mussels open. Finish with the basil and oregano. Garnish with lemon and serve.